What makes a human? What makes a monster? On its 200th anniversary, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus endures as cultural fable about modern science and its political, cultural, and social fallout. We will consider visual and film representations of the Creature from humanity to monstrosity, including questions of gender, race, sexuality, and ethnicity. From Thomas Edison’s Film Studio to the Human Genome Project, from classical mythology to “alter-ego” psychology, this strange, arresting novel will focus our conversations about scientific enthusiasm and its perils, transgressions, outcasts, and “monsters.”
